Buy something else...   Date submitted:(2008-06-08)
Rating:

This unit is sub-par. There is one good features, but there are many shortcomings. You'd be better served to find a model that is a little higher end. The good features: The flashlight, while not very bright, has the advantage of using multiple lenses. Standard lens is the clear lens, and the easily changeable lens can be switched out with either a red lens or an amber lens. The colored lenses can be used with its other good feature, which is the "flash" (think of a slow strobe) setting. If you were stranded by a roadside, for example, you could switch the clear lens for the amber lens and set the unit to flash and place it on top of your car. You would be easily visible. The shortcomings: The radio is pathetic. While FM reception is fairly clear, AM reception is really bad. It seems to depend on how close the radio station is. Which isn't right. I mean, I live 180 miles from WLS AM radio (890 AM in Chicago, IL) which people can easily get on their car radio for several hundred miles from the station. Why cannot my little radio in this unit only faintly pick it up. A mystery to me. The other bad thing about the radio is the antenna. It does not offer a 360-degree swivel. Basically, it is "tucked" into the back side of the unit (with no locking mechanism, by the way) and the antenna folds up or down. There is no back-to-front movement allowed. So, you have to fold the antenna up or down and then re-position the radio itself for front-to-back adjustments of the antenna. Very cheesy. I paid $22 for mine from eBay. I would not buy one of these unless you could get it for, say, under $10.

Dale Briere - Charleston, IL